


thank you, five

by ArtissR0pita



Series: one... or two? [3]
Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons), Trollhunters - Daniel Kraus & Guillermo del Toro
Genre: Gen, Sharing a Body, also douxie is not mentioned by name but... it's Him, these kids are literally playing hot potato with the brain cell, this is so niche wahoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:14:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26135584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtissR0pita/pseuds/ArtissR0pita
Summary: just a casual day out, talking to yourself and yourself and figuring yourselves out. with mangoes!
Relationships: Jim Lake Jr. & Claire Nuñez
Series: one... or two? [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1111176
Kudos: 31





	thank you, five

**Author's Note:**

> this is so niche. should probably read the one before this but if you don't want to you don't have to! basically jim and claire, due to trollhunting shenanigans, can share a body. and it's complicated. and they're tired. i'd say sorry i haven't touched this in two years but. we're here now. back and better (worse) than ever!!
> 
> title is a reference to how in a lot of theatre groups when one of the crew (esp stage manager) says smth you respond with 'thank you [x]' (in this case, 'five' referring to a five minute break)

It was certainly an inconvenience, this unintentional merging at the most inopportune times. You say the same thing at the same time _ once _ , and suddenly nothing works out right anymore.

Which is to say, Claire and Jim had progressed from accidentally donning the armor in public to accidentally  _ sharing a body _ in public. Their class attendance was suffering greatly for this. 

It was one thing to become one singular Trollhunter, but another entirely to drop the armor and still be a combined teenager. 

“What are we going to do about this, Jim? I can’t keep missing classes like this! And people are going to start getting suspicious about the ‘new kid’”-she did air quotes as she spoke-”if we don’t go to classes, and  _ especially _ if we don’t have a name!” She threw their body into a chair dramatically. (Fortunately, it was the weekend, meaning they weren’t at school, and so they were wandering the streets of Arcadia.) (By wandering the streets of Arcadia, they were really just stopping at that little corner cafe downtown. Mr Benoit’s? Who knew, didn’t matter.)

It was a nice day, really. Sunny, but not too hot. Not too bright, but not too cloudy. And they were stuck not enjoying it because nooo their lives just had to be too difficult, and they had to have problems on the weekend, too. Claire kicked the table leg half-heartedly. 

“Okay, well, name first, I guess,” Jim said, leaning their arm on the edge of the table. “I’d say combine our names, but all I’m coming up with is ‘Jlaire’ and that’s not a name.”

“Clam? Kim? Claims? Ugh, those are words, but no, you’re right. This is stupid!” Claire was very tempted to tear her hair out, but reminded herself that this wasn’t  _ just _ her body right now, and Jim probably wouldn’t appreciate their scalp being tormented. One of their barrettes fell out as if to mock her thoughts.

She groaned and buried their head in their arms on the table. This was giving her a headache. (Was Jim getting the headache, too? It would be  _ so _ unfair if he wasn’t.) 

“Hello, welcome to Mr Benoit’s, may I take your order?” A pleasant, unfamiliar voice jolted the two out of their shared frustration. They blinked at the stranger, trying to figure out just what was happening. 

“Oh! Yes, we’re at a cafe. Right, uhhh.” Jim stalled, shared brain rebooting slowly as he tried to process the situation. He and Claire had gotten so caught up in their own problems, they had completely forgotten the outside world. If this was a battle, they’d be dead. 

The waiter stood patiently, smiling gently as if he didn’t mind the awkward teenager being completely useless at all. Maybe he didn’t. 

The traffic light changed, and neither Jim nor Claire had said anything else. The waiter continued to smile benevolently at them. “If you need a little longer, no worries. I can come back in a few minutes while you think about it.” Jim nodded absently. The waiter’s smile grew slightly as he turned away, tucking his notepad and pencil back into his pocket. 

“Maybe some tea? It’s already after noon, so we should probably hold off on coffee or anything caffeinated right now,” Claire said. 

“Uh, you know most teas have caffeine, right?” Jim responded, picking up the menu in front of them but not reading any of it. 

Claire rolled their eyes and kicked their legs back out. “I meant an  _ herbal _ tea or something, Jim. Something without caffeine. Ooh, do you think they have bubble tea?” 

“We are literally holding the menu, Claire.” He opened the laminated pages for emphasis. They glanced down. “I don’t think they have bubble tea.”

“Yeah, and it’s really too warm for a hot tea, anyway. So, no hot tea, no bubble tea, ummm, they have juice? That’s cool and refreshing, probably good for training, right?”

“Hey, what about Jules? As a name, sorry, not to order.” Jim mentally face-palmed. Even when literally sharing a body, he couldn’t stop being cringy around his crush. 

Claire laid the menu back against the table. “Jules,” she said slowly, testing it out. “Jules. Yeah, okay. I like it!” She leaned back against the chair. “Jules! It’s got your J, and my Juliet, it’s great! Perfect!”

“And neutral enough we don’t have to pick between being a ‘boy or a girl’. Also, I’m leaning towards mango. You want mango? I’ll pay for it.” He reached for his wallet and paused. “Wait a second... whose money  _ are _ we spending?”

Claire blinked. “Well, the rest of us combined, so it’s probably both? Our money? It doesn’t matter; I’ll pay you back. And sure, mango is fine.”

Jim shrugged and pulled out their? wallet. 

“You know, most people pay  _ after _ ordering,” their waiter chuckled. (When did he come back? That was fast.) “But I assume this means you’ve decided?” His hazel eyes twinkled. 

“Yes! Uh, yes,” Jim coughed. “One, uh, mango juice, please. Light on the ice. For here.” He groaned into their palm. Why was he so bad at this?

“Will that be all?” The waiter asked, not bothering to write their order down as it was so simple. 

Claire nodded. “Thank you,” she called as he started walking away. He smiled briefly over his shoulder in response. 

“Why are you so bad at this? Sure, you’re shy, but I’ve never seen you fumble so much around someone.” Claire meant it teasingly, but she was genuinely curious.

In turn, Jim groaned louder and buried their head in their arms again. 

“Is it because we’re, you know, like  _ this _ ?” She flapped their hand around vaguely, mostly slapping it against the table as Jim was refusing to move their head off of their arms. “Talking to ourselves in a public space and potentially embarrassing ourselves? I mean, yeah I guess it’s embarrassing, but no one knows who we are anyway, so who cares if we get a reputation for being crazy? Jules won’t show up too much, I hope, and even if we do, nobody’s gonna link them back to us. Us to us? Ugh, never mind, you’re right, this is confusing.”

Jim hummed comfortingly into their sweater. 

“Wait- you think he’s  _ cute _ , don’t you?” A light bulb had gone off in her mind and was refusing to burn out. “Do you get flustered around cute people, Jim?” She was definitely teasing now.  “You know he’s probably in college, right? Alas, it would never work out,” she swooned dramatically. “Poor Jim, left to pine desperately from afar, while his elegant punk prince exists dreamily just outside his grasp.”

Jim was now attempting to stuff their sweater sleeve down their throat in an effort to shut Claire up, but if they both ended up dying, so be it. 

Of course, this was when the elegant punk waiter returned with a clear glass of mango juice, already sweating in the heat from the last vestiges of summer. He blinked at their shenanigans, easy smile slipping into polite confusion. They stared at each other. He set their glass down in front of them and took the menu. 

“Please tell me you didn’t hear any of that,” Jim begged around a mouthful of sweater. 

“No can do, mate. But, uh, enjoy your mango juice.” His easy smile was back, more genuine this time. Jim muttered a weak ‘thanks’. 

As soon as he was back inside, Claire burst out giggling. “I wish I could have seen the look on our face!” 

“Just for that, I’m drinking this entire glass and pretending you can’t taste it. And also tipping him like. All our money. He’s too nice for this.” Jim sipped at their mango juice spitefully. Claire giggled in their head. 

They sat there quietly, watching the cars go by, pedestrians strolling casually as if they had no better place to be. The mango juice really was quite refreshing. It was a comfortable sort of quiet in their head now. A little moment of silliness to help soothe their anxieties and draw them closer. Claire exhaled heavily and took a long swallow of juice. 

“You know, I don’t even really like mango that much,” Jim said, finally. 

Claire started laughing again. Jim would have smiled in response, but that obviously wouldn’t work. He laughed instead, laughing with Claire, laughing with their body, their breath, something they shared and was  _ theirs _ . And it felt a little like contentment. Like peace. And maybe a bit like hope, too.

(Jim still made sure to leave an extra tip for the waiter. Forget 20%, he was tipping, like, 200%. And never coming here ever again.)

**Author's Note:**

> no i don't ship jim and douxie but this is how friends be sometimes. oh you're flustered? can't talk? clearly it's because you find this person attractive. 
> 
> i wrote this in like an hour while extremely sleep deprived so if it's wack that's why. whoops :-) 
> 
> tumblr is @seagullcharmer if u wanna talk!! or leave a comment <3


End file.
